September: 18 albums you need to hear this month

Bicep 'Bicep' (Ninja Tune)

Belfast duo Bicep have touched on many aspects of dance history as bloggers, re-editors and, of course, as global DJs. For much of their debut album, though, they’ve zoomed in on one short period in the past: circa 1989-92, when Balearic, rave, trance, electronica and prog-house still massively overlapped, all part of the same quest for sonic euphoria. There’s no laptop micro-trickery here; everything is drum machine or breaks, bass, warm pads and layers of melodic synth riffs. As the album goes on it occasionally moves forward in time to 2-step and backwards to synth-pop, electro and new age, but at its core are the same fundamentals. Given the energy of their sets, it’s surprisingly dreamy and thoughtful at times (see lead single ‘Aura’, which radiates pure white light) and full of the yearning and bittersweetness of the best post-rave sunrise moments. Most of all, it’s laser-focused in the pursuit of pleasure, and makes absolute sense as a complete album. Joe Muggs

9/10

Photay 'Onism' (Astro Nautico)

Woodstock boy Evan Shornstein’s solo debut as Photay muses on a person’s place within their environment. Gorgeous and textured, this album of percussive and jazz-infused tracks exists at the break of a desire for nature in an irrevocably technological era. Escapist but also sentient of its reality rooted in electronic music, it was recorded in both the urban milieu of Brooklyn and the young producer’s home in the Hudson Valley woods. That tension comes through not only in the album’s titles – ‘Storms’, ‘Screens’ and ‘Eco Friend’ – but in the tone of the tracks, where at one moment a song delves deep into an urgent, synthetic cadence, and then expands into an ambient sense of the vast beauty of the physical world. S Kretowicz

7/10

James Heather 'Stories From Far Away On Piano' (Ahead Of Our Time)

Simplicity and intricacy combine on James Heather’s debut album. He joins the burgeoning ranks of post-classical artists with just a piano for company. It proves a mighty weapon, capable of supreme tenderness and yet, tonally, hugely powerful. Heather – whose day job at Ninja Tune finds him handling PR for the likes of Actress and Wiley – is a storyteller: his instrumental tracks are inspired by real events, from historical incidents like Boer War concentration camps (the heartbreaking intensity of ‘Empire Sounds’), to contemporary tragedies, like a female blogger in Syria murdered by ISIS (the beautiful ‘Ruqia’). There’s a rawness to Heather’s songs that match the emotions of their subject matter. S Worthy

7/10

Dungen 'Häxan (Versions by Prins Thomas)' (Smalltown Supersound)

Inevitably, it’s the name of Prins Thomas that will get Mixmag readers’ ears pricking up. But Dungen, if you’re not familiar with their many jazz-inflected Swedish prog-rock albums, are well worth getting to know in their own right, too. Their most recent album, ‘Häxan’, provides him with no end of interstellar drones, folky guitar jangles, rolling drum patterns and other psychedelic magic to weave into his four 15-minute vinyl sides of cosmic voyaging. Every single thing here is as 70s as you can possibly imagine, yet it never feels kookily retro because it’s just so damned good. Every sound is there for a reason, and the flow over the hour into the ultra-funky final section is absolutely impeccable. Joe Muggs

9/10

UNKLE 'The Road: Part One' (Songs For The Def)

On his first album in seven years, James Lavelle celebrates London’s multiculturalism, producing a record that’s suitably ambitious in scale and widescreen in emotion. Many of Lavelle’s seasoned collaborators are welcomed back, including the gravel-voiced Mark Lanegan (most memorably on the searing strings and Middle Eastern twists of ‘Looking For The Rain’. A clutch of voices, including Mercury-nominated Zimbabwean-born singer Eska garnish the epic orchestral lament of ‘Farewell’, while ‘Arms Length’ strides purposefully towards the dancefloor, accompanied by thrashing synth drums. Like the sprawling city it celebrates, ‘The Road: Part One’ is endlessly eclectic. Stephen Worthy

7/10

Ibeyi 'Ibeyi 2' (XL Recordings)

French-Cuban twins Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz of Ibeyi follow the ambient soul and Afro-Cuban rhythms of their 2015 debut with a second album. Here, the sisters’ searching harmonies expand into thrilling layers of a capella chorale vocals in songs such as opener ‘I Carried This For Years’, as well as a series of emotional anthems with contributions from Meshell Ndegeocello, Kamasi Washington, Chilly Gonzales and others. Sincere and earnest, a softly Auto-Tuned vocal ripples underneath a sample of a speech by Michelle Obama on ‘No Man Is Big Enough For My Arms’. This is an album brimming with optimism, an ecstatic call to arms through music, love and compassion. Steph Kretowicz

7/10